Sanofi, Intelliject sign licensing agreement for auto injector

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. The U.S. subsidiary of French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis will work with a Richmond, Va.-based company on an auto injector for severe allergic reactions.

Sanofi announced Monday that it had signed an agreement with Intelliject to develop and market an auto injector for the emergency treatment of anaphylactic responses, which occur up to 2,000 times per 100,000 people in the United States alone each year and can be fatal within minutes.

Under the agreement, Sanofi will be responsible for manufacturing and commercialization in North America, while Intelliject will be responsible for development and regulatory filings while retaining certain rights to co-promote the auto injector in the United States. Sanofi will make an unspecified payment upfront to Intelliject and be eligible for milestone payments and royalties.

Not quite, but the continued evolution of Kerr’s Community Healthcare Center store concept certainly offers a glimpse into what role community pharmacy could play in the American healthcare system of the future — and it goes far beyond just MTM. Like the deal CVS Caremark announced last week with Generation Health, pharmacogenomics, the study of how genetics influence drug response, represents the new frontier of community pharmacy.

In fairness, pharmacogenomics has been a part of the specialty pharmacy business for some time; given the cost of many of these drugs, the investment in DNA testing to optimize therapy is a no-brainer. But, projects like Kerr’s pilot with UNC’s Eshelman School of Pharmacy, which will focus on patients taking Plavix, target the long-term savings generated by patients on traditional drug therapies getting the most out of those medications. These types of programs will be instrumental in demonstrating community pharmacy’s value beyond simply dispensing.

It is important to note that all of the stories about innovation in community pharmacy are not generated solely by the likes of CVS Caremark and Walgreens, though clearly they are the leaders. But the story of Kerr and its Community Healthcare Center concept are an important reminder of the innovation and leadership that also continues to come out of Chapel Hill, N.C.

NEW YORK If anyone still doubted the extraordinary contributions that pharmacists can bring to the nation’s costly and overloaded healthcare system, the Nov. 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine should lay their doubts to rest. In a report on a new and innovative approach to treating hypertension, the publication highlighted the impact that a true working collaboration between doctors and pharmacists can have on successful patient outcomes.

The report, lead-authored by Barry Carter of the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy, focused on a study of 402 people treated for high blood pressure at six clinics. Those patients were divided into two groups. Half the patients comprised a control group and were given a traditional treatment regimen for hypertension, where a prescription is written by an attending physician and the pharmacist’s role is simply to fill the script and provide basic initial counseling.

The other group was luckier. Those patients were ushered into a 21st-century style of medical practice and wellness. Their condition was managed and monitored by teams of physicians and pharmacists who were trained to adjust dosage regimens, and even the drugs dispensed, based on the patient’s ongoing condition.

The results were dramatic. After a six-month trial, 30% of patients in the control group were able to get their blood pressure down to recommended levels. More than twice as many of the patients who participated in a doctor-pharmacist team approach — 64% if them, to be exact — achieved the same improvement.

A few forward-looking health plans and insurers, such as Kaiser Permanente and the Department of Veterans Affairs — along with some of the most progressive university-affiliated medical centers, such as the Cleveland Clinic and Duke University — already pursue some collaborative-care programs. Hopefully, the results of the hypertension study will spur more such efforts.

Amid the nation’s urgent search for health reform and solutions to the unsustainable rise in chronic healthcare costs, it’s an idea whose time is long overdue.

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